Coach of the century
TODAY, IN DUBLIN, WARREN GATLAND TAKES CHARGE OF HIS 100th TEST WITH WALES AFTER 10 YEARS AT THE HELM. CAN HE MARK THE OCCASION BY PUTTING A SMILE ON ALL OUR FACES?
TEN years, 100 games, and enough acerbic soundbites to fill the notebook of every rugby writer on the planet – the Gatland Era reaches an impressive milestone today and there couldn’t be a more appropriate match to embody the enigmatic essence of Warren than Ireland v Wales.
The meeting of red and green is an encounter that has always thrown light on Gatland’s story, his spirit, and his psyche.
Touching down in Belfast on Thursday night – I’m making a roadtrip of this Ireland weekend – I picked up the Irish Independent and as usual the press across the water were framing a contest of countries as a personal duel.
“Gatland vs Ireland is always box office” declared the front-page strapline, plugging an article exploring the “complex relationship” between Warren and the country he once coached.
“Drama and rebirth of old rivalries in build-up are a given when Kiwi meets his former team,” said the headline inside.
The bond between supporters, of course, is rather less complicated. I’ll be meeting up with my lovely Irish pals Dave and Orla this weekend, renewing a friendship that has been entirely built around this fixture for almost 20 years.
And I won’t be the only one enjoying the colour of Celtic camaraderie filling the pubs of Temple Bar this weekend as the Red Army invades the Emerald Isle.
The bodrhan will give Calon Lan a new beat and when the black stuff starts flowing we might even forget it costs seven Euros a pint.
So off the pitch Dublin is all about the craic... but on the pitch in recent years it’s been all about the flak as the natural rivalry between Ireland and Wales took on an increasingly tetchy edge.
Yet Gatland can be forgiven turning this fixture into a grudge match given his experiences in Ireland.
It’s where his international coaching career began and he couldn’t have had a better start, blooding a youthful Brian O’Driscoll and creating a talented young side that would go on to great things.
Bizarrely, Ireland just didn’t let him go with them. As Ruaidhri O’Connor points out in the Irish Independent: “Sacked in 2001 by the IRFU and replaced by his assistant coach Eddie O’Sullivan, he has long held a grievance about the way it all ended. Not that it has held him back, but his meetings with Ireland and the Irish have always been colourful affairs, characterised by drama and controversy. There have been offfield spats, on-field furores and heartbreak on both sides.”
In his first season with Wales, Gatland gained the sweetest of revenges against O’Sullivan with the win at Croke Park that secured the Triple Crown en route to the Grand Slam a week later.
I remember Gatland being asked in the post-match press conference where the victory ranked in the scheme of his career.
With a smile that gave a loaded subtext to the words it accompanied he replied: “Today was nice,” he mused. “Pretty nice, actually”.
The verbal rucking began in earnest the following year when Gatland said the Welsh players disliked the Irish the most.
It was a compliment. What he was really saying was Ireland had replaced England in the Welsh psyche as the team to beat.
But all hell broke loose in the Irish media, giving the Celtic cauldron an almighty stir before the battle in Cardiff that saw Ireland chasing their first Grand Slam since 1948 and Wales in with a shout of the championship if they could win with a 13-point margin.
In the end Ireland edged it by two points despite Stephen Jones’ best efforts to spoil the party with a penalty at the death.
As it fell agonisingly short, the noise that came from Glanmor’s Gap – glowing green with Irish support – could have been heard in Galway Bay.
A year later the Irish press got their retaliation in first with a script straight out of Mrs Brown’s Boys.
Gatland’s a “menopausal warthog” they sneered. And the Irish players had the last word on the field with a comprehensive win at Croke Park.
Mike Phillips provided the next twist in the Celtic Cousins soap opera, snatching a cheeky home win in 2011 by scoring a try with a different lineout ball than the one hoofed into the west stand.
Irish eyes were seething as O’Driscoll claimed his team were robbed by an “unforgiveable” controversy.
Then that same year there was the Wellington quarter-final which saw Gatland’s young guns outplay, outshine and outsmart Ireland to deny the last remnants of their golden generation a final shot at World Cup glory.
A final kick from Halfpenny after a dubious yellow card for Ireland set Wales on their 2012 Grand Slam path.
But it was journey’s end for O’Driscoll in a Lions shirt the following year. BOD is God so Gats put the ire in Ireland with his sacrilegious selection. Keith Wood is probably still having counselling.
For the neutral, Gatland’s decision to drop one of the most garlanded players of the professional age for a crucial Lions series decider showed the steel of the true coach, a leader who must be without sentiment.
And it was a selection that was vindicated as the Lions smashed Australia in the third test to bring the best of British and Irish their first series victory since 1997.
But Gatland could have visited every confessional in Ireland after dropping O’Driscoll and he still wouldn’t have been granted forgiveness.
Penance came the following sea-
son. In 2014 Wales were crushed 26-3. The only display of Welsh enterprise that day was Mike Phillips’ cheeky tweet to Niall from One Direction.
Responding to the pop starlet’s criticism after the spiky scrum-half had engaged in his annual sledging match with Ronan O’Gara, he quipped: “Come down to training in the week big boy. Bring the rest of The Beatles with you.”
That dire defeat at the Aviva remains Gatland’s biggest loss against his old team. Perhaps it lulled former Irish international Neil Francis into making the crass and offensive comment that characterised yet another bitchy Wales v Ireland build-up in 2015.
According to Francis, Gatland had “the intellectual capacity of a tub of Flora”. We couldn’t believe he wasn’t better but the margarine barb backfired deliciously for it was precisely the Welsh coach’s tactical expertise that gave Wales the edge in a titanic clash that saw them triumph 23-16.
Gatland’s wonderfully mischievous post-match description of himself as “a simple Kiwi boy” was the perfect riposte to Francis’s nonsense – and the Welsh coach proved himself to be anything but.
From the opening quarter when Wales clocked up 12 points in as many minutes to the skilful way they brought Ireland’s much-vaunted aerial game down to earth, it was obvious how much thought had gone into nullifying the emerald threat that day.
And who can forget the sevenminute siege that saw Ireland repelled by an outstanding Welsh defence that endured two waves of attack adding up to almost 50 phases?
It would always be difficult to follow such a compelling Celtic classic but that was still no excuse for both sides delivering that rather drab 16-16 draw in Dublin the season after.
Last year, meanwhile, saw Wales lose three of their five Six Nations matches yet still reserve enough fire for an emphatic 22-9 win over Ireland in Cardiff.
So the 10-year tale of Ireland v Wales under Gatland has been crammed with Celtic controversy, carping and colour.
Yet while Warren has waged the occasional war of words, the deeds of the Welsh players he has guided against Ireland speak louder.
In his 100th match with Wales he is looking to defeat his old team for the seventh time in 12 encounters. That’s a significant record.
And spread the word, the man who likened Gats to a tub of marg – and who has consistently been on the frontline of those malicious Irish media skirmishes – is tipping Warren’s Wales for the win.
Neil Francis even comes near to compliments: “Warren Gatland, more than any other coach in the world, has lived, dined and slept on the perceived slights of opinion thrown in his face.
“He has faced down the doubters and used anger as an energy and turned a lot of negativity thrown in his direction into a catalyst for success,” he writes, adding: “His reputation and his coaching pedigree have been fully recognised and vouched for.”
Conceding “Wales know how to stop Ireland better than anyone”, Francis concludes: “This is a grudge match and I feel the visitors have a whole lot more than a puncher’s chance. I have a bad feeling about this one.”
And I have a good one. Make it a happy 100th, Warren.